FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke believes that the “worries about the heat are legitimate” for the 2022 first ever World Cup in Qatar, but the FIFA official added that the intention remains “to play this World Cup in June” in the Middle East. Normally their would be no debate of when the World Cup would be played (all previous installments were played in the summer), but considering the extreme humidity and rising tempertures that exist in the Middle East during June many critics are hoping that FIFA reconsiders and moves the event to the Winter time of the year.
In fact it gets so hot in Qatar that the country was labeled a “potential health risk” by FIFA’s technical report heading into the vote and the average summer day in the selected destination is roughly around 110 to 115 degrees. Despite these grim environmental facts about the country, Valcke claims that the heat factor will “never be at the detriment of the players or fans, or anybody. The players will play in conditions — whether in terms of training or in the stadiums — that are normal conditions.”
And apparently one of the remedies the committee and the country are coming up with to cope with the harsh weather conditions is to add state-of-the-art cooling systems to each of the venues and hopefully will reduce climates to the lower 80 to 85 degrees. This proposal will certainly help with the terrible heat wave that will likely hit fans, but I am still a bit skeptical about this plan of action because it has yet to be proven to be reliable. Adding a cooling system could help fans inside the stadium, but what about all the fans outside the stadium or traveling from destination to destination.
The truth is that you can only control so much and one of the things you can rarely control (in any shape or form) is the weather. Hopefully FIFA and Qatar can come up with some creative and productive ways to reduce temperatures during the event, but to say that nobody will have a negative experience because of the heat is a complete and utter lie. Elderly folks, children, and all walks of life in between the two will be attending the World Cup. So somebody will have a negative affect from such intense temperatures somewhere over the course of the month.
But look for the 2022 World Cup to stay in the summer time. Despite the heat on FIFA to move it to the holiday season.
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